Thoughts of Charlotte

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I had a chance this weekend to spend some time exploring Charlotte. I must say I was fairly impressed with what I saw albeit in a limited fashion. Just a few comments though. The downtown area along Tryon St was fairly hopping with people going to restaurants, to the horse show at Bobcats Arena or just plain walking. With the museums and the library there were things to do there. One thing you could not do apparently is shop. There are few retail stores located at street level with most I assume tucked inside the office towers and open only during weekday business hours. If Charlotte can not make retail work at street level, how can Winston? At the very least Winston has the Arts district but I think Charlotte has at least 4-5 such districts like Dilworth or NoDa scattered about the city.

The museums were incredibly busy which reinforces my belief that if a general-purpose museum or art gallery exists downtown in Winston, it will bring people downtown and accelerate redevelopment efforts.

I liked the Fourth Ward area, a thriving residential area of houses and parks adjacent to downtown. Condos are nice and encourages density but compact homes with people who take pride in their home's individuality and gardens can make a difference. Winston is not too bad with such neighbourhoods like the West End but the problem is the many dead zones that have to be crossed between such neighbourhoods. The West End Village condo and townhouse development is important because it attaches the West End closer to downtown but downtown still has some way to go.

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Downtown retail is "hidden" in the overstreet mall. There isn't much retail there [yet]. SouthPark and Phillips Place have the upscale retail right now, where I see you went in your journal. Yeah Tyvola around South Blvd is pretty generic like any other area... I'm happy you liked what you saw for the most part . Glad you got to see Fourth Ward too. Cute baby by the way!

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I love the queen City, the only bad thing about Charlotte is the schools. I wish they were better schools for such a great city like charlotte, I wish winston-salem down-Town was like Charlotte's with tall Buildings and lot of eaters. I wish Winston-Salem highways were better,I would like to see 40 thur down-town a eight lane highway with HOV lanes. I would also like to see US-52 become a eight lane highway with HOV lanes. Does anyone think this will ever come true?